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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30066537">Fall in Love in Three Days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Death_and_A_Maiden/pseuds/A_Death_and_A_Maiden'>A_Death_and_A_Maiden</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Yuri on Ice One Shots [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Break Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Lime, M/M, No Sex, Not Canon Compliant, Out of Character, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:08:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,271</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30066537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Death_and_A_Maiden/pseuds/A_Death_and_A_Maiden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuri (that is the name of the blonde Russian) silently wolf-whistles when their taxi pulls over by a big cottage in a private residence area in one of the wealthier suburbs of Almaty and Otabek bites his lips to prevent them from splitting into a cocky smile. Otabek pays the taxi driver (because, unlike some other people, he has remembered to cash some local money at the airport) and thinks that he must find time to tell Yuri how the beautiful Russian shouldn’t trust random strangers. What if Otabek is a serial killer?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Otabek Altin &amp; Jean-Jacques Leroy, Otabek Altin &amp; Yuri Plisetsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Yuri on Ice One Shots [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fall in Love in Three Days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>OK, so maybe he closed their apartment door a bit too loud that morning.<br/>
Not that it makes a huge difference at the cruising altitude their plane is reaching right now.<br/>
Canada has always been a temporary stop, anyway.<br/>
Otabek booked a single way airplane ticket the moment he had realized he no longer remembered the scent of the steppe. </p>
<p>You need two shores to build a bridge. </p>
<p>And the man in the window seat is so drop dead gorgeous that Otabek’s heart misses a beat. Otabek shoves his backpack into the overhead locker where it lands with a loud thud and takes his designated aisle seat, leaving the middle seat vacant for its rightful ticketed traveller, and he notices that the blonde man in the window seat has definitely been crying recently. The distance between them closes when Otabek leans over into the middle seat to catch the end of his seat belt and at the same time he catches the bodily scent of the man in the window seat: thick as the best kind of honey, rich as the best kind of milk and sharp as the best vodka on the rocks. </p>
<p>If he’s this good, why can’t he just remember the way the steppe of Kazakhstan smells like? </p>
<p>The blonde man is literally drowning in a black over-sized hoodie (presumably, Monochrome?), Otabek notices the other man’s contrasting matchsticks of legs in black jeans with trendy distressed knees and he also spots a pair of red leopard print Converses. He quickly calculates the total of the merchandise on the blonde and that helps him to come to a conclusion that his one-seat-removed neighbour is in the ambiguous ‘financially comfortable’ bracket.  The blonde isn’t in a mood for a friendly casual chat before the take-off or anytime after it that, instead, he busies himself with his phone and a set of wireless ear-buds of an earphone; he has merely acknowledged Otabek’s existence at this point in time. Otabek knows better than to take an insult, he knows beautiful people draw a lot of unwanted attention and he wants to be no part of it. But flesh is weak and Otabek is made of flesh, not steel, and he prays to the gods of all religions and for once in the lifetime his prayers are answered because no one comes to claim the middle seat, the flight attendant pulls the plane doors close and the flight safety instruction starts. </p>
<p>Otabek closes his eyes and leans his head against the backrest of the seat. Otabek is exhausted. His flight to Russia from Toronto has already been over fourteen hours long and now he adds another five hours from St. Petersburg to Almaty. He knows he needs a hot shower, a good shave, a long sleep, a home-made meal (his sister has promised to drop in at his place and make it somewhat livable in the space of the short notice he has been able to give her) and a good, quick, rough fuck to blow off the steam. Otabek is one hour into the flight when he feels he’s about to disconnect into the subconscious level of tiredness but a shove in his inner thigh pulls him back to reality. He snaps his head to the source of the pain and he realizes that his neighbour has fallen asleep and is now sprawling along the three seats pretty much like a starfish. The crown of his blonde hair is resting against the window, his ear-buds are miraculously holding securely in his tiny elf-like ears, a childlike pout forms on his pink lips and tiny feet in thin black socks are now resting on Otabek’s lap, Converses unlaced and discarded under the seat. That is one very uncomfortable position for <i>something </i> and Otabek’s crotch informs him of this fact right now, so he takes off a soft chunky sweater he’s been wearing for his flights (because airport air conditioning is crazy) and lays it over his crotch. He tells himself he wants to keep the stranger’s feet warm but there’s a definite agenda of covering up a traitorous bulge in his own pants. Jeans aren’t the best long-flight option, Otabek is uncomfortably aware of that right now but that has been the only seemingly clean item of clothing he has been able locate in his marathon of packing before he fled Canada as if his feet were on fire. It is not helped when during the next couple of hours the blonde man stirs like a cat, though he never wakes up, and his feet rub against Otabek’s private parts in a very un-private way. Otabek has all the right to wake the other man up and reprimand him but, shamefully Otabek admits to himself, he feels so good, so this strangely un-consensually consensual foot fetish is much welcomed, though Otabek hopes he doesn’t come in his pants, <i>thank you very much. </i></p>
<p>Otabek gets up, stretches his sore body muscles as far as he can in the given context, removes his backpack from the overhead locker and then he notices another backpack, pushed to the far end of the overhead locker. Since the middle seat has been vacant for the duration of the entire flight, Otabek doesn’t need to call a fortune-teller to know whom the backpack belongs to. </p>
<p>“Do you want your bag?”- he asks in heavily accented English and then repeats his question in much better Russian; Otabek still has no idea of the blonde man’s origins. The blond man looks up and Otabek is enveloped with a fire of cold blue eyes. Otabek had no previous idea that ice could burn. It can. It does. The other man just gives a small nod and Otabek drops the stranger’s bag on the middle seat. Unlike his own carry-on, this one isn’t marked with transfer luggage stickers but, Otabek pats himself on the shoulder for his watchfulness, there’s a pin of a Russian tricolor on the bag. Otabek feels the journey takes its toll and he wishes that the taxi line would move quickly today, of all the days. He has a sudden wish to lock himself in the toilet cabin in the nearest airport facility and fall asleep with his head on the water-closet seat, just like a normal jet-lagged person would. He hasn’t checked if he would have to pass through immigration to enter his home country and that alone could take a lifetime because the border patrols worldwide share the same grueling feature of moving with the thrilling speed of a tectonic plate.</p>
<p>Otabek messes around with his own luggage and the blonde man impatiently pushes ahead of Otabek to get ahead in the passenger line to disembark the plane. The line, of course, is moving at a snail’s pace and Otabek can admire the back of the blonde man. He has pulled his nearly white hair (Otabek honestly doubts it can be so perfect by nature) into a bun that is being held with a gray satin band. The backpack that the blonde man is carrying over his back doesn’t look like it’s packed for an extended stay and Otabek can not but wonder what kind of man travels this light. Someone who can buy anything he wants or someone who doesn’t give a flying fuck about anything? </p>
<p>Sure thing, they have to pass passport control. Otabek takes it personally. Not only he cannot remember the scent of the steppe but also his home country isn’t welcoming him home. Otabek loses the object of his affection shortly because the blonde man is evidently on a different passport than Otabek and they join different waiting lines. The passport control post for Kazakhstan passport holders is moving much faster than the other, intended to screen foreign visitors. Even though Kazakhstan has visa-free regime with many countries, mandatory passport checks are required as entry and exit have to be stamped properly. </p>
<p>Met by accident.<br/>
United by fate.<br/>
Otabek nearly walks into <i> and over  </i> the blonde man from the plane at the taxi rink.<br/>
Otabek offers the blonde man to share the taxi ride from the airport to the city center and split the cost. Not that the man in a pair of Converse shoes retailing for sixty dollars and up may be looking for a bargain but it is the most split-second un-stalkerish pick up line Otabek can come up this quick and it turns out to be Otabek’s saving grace that the blonde man has somehow missed out on the fact that Kazakhstan has its own currency. Nor has the guest of Kazakhstan’s beautiful gem of Almaty booked a hotel or another accommodation. </p>
<p>They end up getting a taxi ride to Otabek’s place, which is not in the city center. Quite the opposite, actually. </p>
<p>Yuri (that is the name of the blonde Russian) silently wolf-whistles when their taxi pulls over by a big cottage in a private residence area in one of the wealthier suburbs of Almaty and Otabek bites his lips to prevent them from splitting into a cocky smile. Otabek pays the taxi driver (because, unlike some other people, he has remembered to cash some local money at the airport) and thinks that he must find time to tell Yuri how the beautiful Russian shouldn’t trust random strangers. What if Otabek is a serial killer? </p>
<p>Otabek is not a serial killer, of course. He is a good boy that comes from a family in oil. His studies in business management at a prestigious university in Toronto were meant to prepare him to take over control the family company once his father would decide to step down, which is when he eventually goes to meet his Creator when his heart gives up or when Otabek’s mother finally succeeds in years of tearfully nagging about deteriorating health of her husband; Otabek puts his bet on the first option. Studies overseas were one of the good decisions he has ever made. Moving in with a son of his family friends and maybe falling in love with him was one of the bad decisions he has ever made. </p>
<p>JJ.<br/>
He was a regent but not a king.<br/>
He was a safety island on a busy road but not the highway.<br/>
He was a temporary bus stop on a metro line which is stopped for maintenance but not the central line.<br/>
He was the yellow of the traffic lights but not the green arrow.<br/>
Worse of it all was that nothing about JJ, nothing about Toronto and nothing about Canada smelled like the steppe. </p>
<p>Otabek dumps his stuff on the floor in the entrance hall with the indifference that is new to him. He can sort it out later. His sister has texted him that she has brought Otabek’s place to living standards (that includes a fully stocked fridge and some home-made meals to get him started on his home turf) but only one bedroom has been made. Otabek quickly scoops the extra bed linen and a few towels from the small storage room and drops it onto the unmade bed in a guest bedroom that is closest to his own bedroom, he also checks if the shower head in the guest bathroom is running. Then, he finds Yuri in the kitchen. The blonde man is risking pneumonia by gaping at the open fridge for a very long time.<br/>
“This fridge has enough food for your wife and all eight of your children,”- finally declares Yuri and Otabek chuckles.<br/>
“I’m single. I just got lucky, I suppose,”- says Otabek and he knows this is not a good time to tell Yuri how he had declined an arranged marriage in the sitting room of this cottage two weeks before he left for Canada. That was five years ago. In another life. </p>
<p>Now Otabek knows who he is. The hard work will be to break the news to the family. His sister strongly suspects but she has seen some of the world during her own student exchange, she knows the rigid traditional Muslim way of life isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of this world. She doesn’t approve of it, though. Otabek is grateful for her silence. </p>
<p>Otabek seriously doubts the extent of parental love.<br/>
Suddenly, the idea to come back doesn’t seem such a good one. His parents will want to know the reason of his abrupt departure from Canada. It is so unlike Otabek who is the master of measuring nine times before making a cut.<br/>
And cuddling with another man while trying to smell the steppe certainly isn’t what his parents have paid for.</p>
<p>Yuri says he would take a shower before he can consume any food and Otabek is left alone in the kitchen to heat the pilaf his sister has made. She’s an amazing chef, all Altins are good at cooking, actually. Otabek is ready to eat but Yuri seems to be taking his time with the shower. Otabek finds it strange because cats are said to dislike water. </p>
<p>Otabek finds Yuri in the guest bedroom that has been provided for the Russian. The door is open and Otabek pauses in the doorway. He is torn between the fact that it’s his house and the fact that he may be infringing on Yuri’s privacy because Yuri is sitting on the bed and painting his toe nails with pink polish while talking to someone on a video call on his phone. The person on the other end of the line gives voice to Otabek’s worries about serial killers that lurk for their victims at airport taxi ranks. Otabek sits next to Yuri so that the person Yuri’s talking to can be seen face-to-face. Otabek is surprised at the physical similarities Yuri shares with the other person because it’s a man with incredibly sharp blue eyes and silver hair that that cannot be natural. Otabek makes an educated guess Yuri and the other man are relatives. Otabek sends their geolocation to Victor, as Yuri introduces them, but Otabek doesn’t share other details except his first name. He has had enough bad experience with people finding out he was <i> the </i> Altin. It is difficult to trust people when one keeps guessing when their new friends are going to ask for a friendly loan. </p>
<p>The next three days are spent doing sightseeing. Otabek takes Yuri to all the touristy spots of Almaty and then they ride Otabek’s motorbike to off-the-beaten-path locations they both appreciate much more than the famous landmarks. Yuri turns out to be good at cooking, a passion they both share, and Otabek’s fridge is a well that doesn’t dry. The moment Otabek tries Yuri’s made meatloaf with carrots and beetroots, he wants to go down on one knee in front of Yuri and propose to him right there, on the kitchen floor dripped with cooking oil and occasional vegetable peels that have escaped the broom. They are very comfortable around each other with just a slight sexual tension here and there. Otabek catches Yuri’s stares at him but Yuri blushes and looks away when he is caught, so Otabek swiftly adopts a strategy of pretending he doesn’t notice when Yuri’s looking at him. They watch films with an improvised picnic on the carpet in the living room in front of a large TV and when Yuri rightfully passes out from tiredness of the day, Otabek picks him up gently ant carries to the guest bedroom. He likes it when Yuri nuzzles into his throat, just like a big cat, breathing in the scent of Otabek’s skin. Yuri can consume a large quantity of alcohol (“I’m Russian”) before Otabek curbs it but Otabek doesn’t drink. He isn’t a practicing Muslim but he doesn’t need a drink to feel drunk around Yuri-that’s the effect the Russian blonde has on Otabek. </p>
<p>Yuri is Otabek’s light.<br/>
Yuri is Otabek’s darkness.<br/>
Yuri is Otabek’s everything.</p>
<p>Yuri asks Otabek to pour him a drink, his first that night. “Quench my thirst,”- says Otabek and he presses his lips against Yuri’s. Otabek slowly and carefully tastes Yuri and indeed the Russian’s taste is thick as the best kind of honey, rich as the best kind of milk and sharp as the best vodka on the rocks. Otabek musters up enough courage to ask why Yuri has been crying before his flight and what has made Almaty his travel destination.<br/>
“I needed some time on my own to think,”- says Yuri. Otabek nods, he knows what Yuri means too well. Otabek also needs to unpack some things about his life because of the lovely mess he has got himself into but neither he nor Yuri turn out to be great thinkers of the modern era. </p>
<p>“JJ, I’m not gonna be back,”- says Otabek when he musters up enough courage one more time to make that one important phone call to an overseas number. He tries to control his breathing and in the safety of his bedroom with the setting sun painting the walls red he does a really good job. There’s silence on the other end of the line and then JJ matter-of-factedly asks if Otabek wants his stuff to be shipped over. Otabek knows, oh God he does, that this isn’t the right way to end a relationship (is there the <i> right </i> way to end a relationship?) but he is grateful to JJ for not throwing a tantrum. They will probably stop speaking to each other at some point in the future. Otabek feels a bit sorry that JJ will have to take time to sort out through his stuff and that can not go easily, so he just asks for some private things, like his favourite books, music records and documents, to be forwarded by pay-collect to Almaty and asks if JJ could donate the rest of the clothing to a shelter of his own choice. Otabek knows he will also have to sort out the situation with his education but it’s his last year and, for the price his parents are paying, he knows he can move to university’s online options. Sometimes being rich pays off. </p>
<p>“Victor, I’m not gonna be back,”- says Yuri as he sits down on the bed to remove the toe nail polish in his guest bedroom. He isn’t sure what he’s gonna do next but there is some time before September when Otabek will have to focus on the last chunk of the academic programme to qualify for a degree. Yuri has agreed to stay in Almaty until then and to be open to opportunities when they come. Victor agrees to forward some of the most necessary stuff to Almaty but it will take some time and red-tape for Yuri’s cat to be relocated. Yuri can enroll to a university in Almaty or he can find a job locally, and Otabek has offered to support Yuri financially if that would be of any help (Otabek was very careful with this suggestion because Yuri could have surely clawed his tongue out for treating him like some stupid child). Who said money couldn’t buy happiness? Otabek Altin would prove them wrong on twenty-five different counts. His parents will probably disapprove at first but Otabek is so done playing hide-and-seek that it’s not even funny. </p>
<p>In the morning, when Otabek steps outside of the cottage to check the mailbox, he stops and takes in a deep breath. The wind is coming from the north and Otabek can smell the steppe fresh with rain.  The wind rustles some fallen leaves on the ground, plays gently with his hair and then whispers something promising in his ear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The End</p>
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